Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

People I know of on the Internet also didn't seem too excited about them. As a matter of fact, it was pretty much ignored all three times. But is that not the purpose of an award? To recognize greatness? To recognize the heart and soul put into a project? To award literary accumen in the dissemination of facts that reaches into the hearts and souls of others and shakes them to action? Does it need to be a spectacle to people to be considered important? It would appear so.

Ok, well, in that vein, we now come to the Oscars that does none of those things of late (because people care more for the dresses and hair and who they are going to___ after it's over) yet people are sitting on the edge of their seats stating how An Inconvenient Truth winning an Oscar would give Mr. Gore so much publicity and put pressure on him to run for President.  

That is the real extent of their caring about this movie and book and the impact it should have on people? Really, what are these people smoking? I do agree that it would give him publicity, but again, these people who claim to support him still do not seem to understand from where in his heart this project came from even after all of the interviews he has given about this movie and this issue.

He is so humble about this that he didn't even want to do the slide show as a movie. He didn't want to be called a hero. He really does not do anything in his travels regarding this movie with any big fanfare to bring attention to himself. Do you all see a pattern here? He doesn't do these things because this isn't about him it is about our planet. You know, the real prize we should all have our eyes on?

The Oscar to me is really just a Hollywood insider award, and I would only see it as a group of Hollywood insiders purposefully voting for this movie because they too want Al Gore to "save them" by running for President and using his movie to get him up in the spotlight. It would look more like a bribe to me than an award given to reflect their appreciation for the human and spiritual qualities of this movie, as well as the scientific facts that warn us of what we must do to face our future sustainably.

I can see it now: it gets awarded, and Mr. Gore goes humbly up to the microphone to talk about the movie, and a pre-arranged chant of "Run Al Run" starts on national TV to box him in. Talk about arrogance. But then, why would Hollywood see the toxicity of the DC beltway they continue to support when that toxicity stretches all the way to their red carpets? Where were they in 2000 when our Democracy was being stolen? I suppose it would really be so convenient for them to be able to give Mr. Gore an award now that they think they too are absolved from looking the other way.

I actually think Johnny Cash had the right response after being awarded a country music award from the same industry which for years shunned him and treated him like an outlaw just because he didn't tow their line because he sang about real life and played to prisons. Of course, Mr. Gore is too much of a gentleman to reenect Mr. Cash's response, but it sure is how I feel towards people who don't even know your name unless you are considered "popular" by the insiders.

But of course, you would most definitely see that up in neon lights on almost every Internet "Gore support site" and "progressive" blog which would only use it to stick it to "the other side" because well, hey, it's the Oscar, and this is about giving publicity to a political end to all of this in lieu of truly seeing the urgency of the content of the movie and the action it hopes to inspire from us on that human, spiritual, and moral level. Washington insiders, Hollywood insiders, people with their hands out and their agendas pinned on their sleeves. Yet, where is that moral will to truly do as his movie tells us we must do on a massive scale now?

The only group really responding on a real level are religious groups. They are showing this movie in their basements with no big hoopla, yet they are reaching people. There are people trained and set to be trained in giving presentations about these facts in order to spring people out of their sleep and into caring for their planet before it is too late. There are people finally taking into account the impact they have upon this world and looking to change it. None of them need a red carpet, glaring lights, and adoration from plastic people to motivate them.

Therefore my question then is, does An Inconvenient Truth even transcend the coveted Oscars? My answer is yes, and in the end whether Mr. Gore decides that his movie should be entered in that contest or not for whatever reasons, for me the prize he gives to us in it is what really matters in the end.